The chaos of the Trump-campaign circus attracted a variety of eccentrics, grifters, hustlers, résumé-inflators and Russophiles from which the White House is now doing its best to disassociate from: former adviser Carter Page, the self-described Russian-energy expert who has been talking to the F.B.I.; former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who has been indicted on 12 counts of financial crimes related to his lobbying operations in eastern Europe; Mike Flynn, who is being investigated by Robert Mueller for undisclosed work on behalf of the Turkish government that allegedly included a plot to kidnap a Muslim cleric living in rural Pennsylvania. And, of course, there is George Papadopoulos, the former Trump campaign adviser who pleaded guilty this summer to lying to federal agents about his contacts with Russians who appear, by any reasonable standard, to have been spies.

Papadopoulos, according to Donald Trump, was a low-level volunteer—a “coffee boy,” according to another former campaign official. But Papadopoulos saw his role as much more significant—and evidence of his travels and communications on behalf of the campaign suggests that it was.

Before and after the 2016 election, Papadopoulos made a series of claims in interviews with Greek journalists that undercut Trump’s dismissive portrait of the then-29 year-old adviser. While the White House has only acknowledged one encounter Trump had with Papadopoulos, the Greek journalists told Politico that Papadopoulos told them he had an “informal” five-minute phone conversation with Trump in March 2016 after he had been selected to join the campaign’s foreign-policy team and that he met the then-presidential hopeful at a March 21 campaign event at the Trump Hotel in Washington. That same day, Trump sat down for the interview with The Washington Post's editorial board in which he listed the members of his newly formed foreign-policy staff and characterized Papadopoulos as “an energy and oil consultant” and “excellent guy.” (Papadopoulos later received approval from a campaign official to broker a meeting with the Russian government, according to records unsealed by the F.B.I., although an attorney for former national campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis said he was just “being polite” when he encouraged a trip to Europe.)

It is possible that Papadopoulos exaggerated his influence in Europe, where he sought out meetings with foreign officials and later took credit for Trump’s election victory. “Everyone knows I helped him [get] elected, now I want to help him with the presidency,” Papadopoulos said in one text message published by the Greek newspaper Kathimerini. On another occasion, Papadopoulos reportedly boasted that he had a “blank check” for a position in the Trump administration, Politico reports, a claim the Greek journalists expressed skepticism about. “During our interview, I felt that he was probably lucky, having just met Trump in person and then Trump being interviewed and mentioning his name,” Marianna Kakaounaki, an investigative reporter for Kathimerini, told Politico. “That mention opened a lot of Greek doors for him, and probably in other countries too.” One source close to Papadopoulos told Politico that the former foreign-policy adviser’s claims about his personal interactions with Trump were fabricated, but didn’t go into detail.

Regardless, however, Papadopoulos’s boasts appear to have opened doors for him. Politico reports that Papadopoulos traveled at least twice to Greece and, as a representative of the Trump campaign, met with senior government officials, including President Prokopis Pavlopoulos while he was there. He is also reported to have met, at various points, with British Under-Secretary of State for Defence People and Veterans Tobias Ellwood, as well as Cypriot and Israeli officials, in addition to his now well-publicized contacts with Russian intermediaries. All of this is certainly of interest to Congress and special counsel Robert Mueller, with whom he is now cooperating. “Obviously, the committee is interested in the role that Papadopoulos played in the campaign, especially given the way that the White House has downplayed his role,” one member of the House Intelligence Committee told Politico. “We certainly want to know about any meetings he had with senior campaign officials, including the president, about his travel abroad, and about any meetings he took part in with foreign counterparts or government officials.”

The vast web of relationships between multiple members of the Trump campaign and Russian officials or intermediaries has, of course, made it difficult for the White House to distance the president from the targets of Mueller’s investigation. It’s a dilemma that the Kremlin, far from wanting to help Trump resolve, seems to be enjoying. On Wednesday, when asked during an interview with Russia-1 to name all the Trump administration officials he met with or spoke to on the phone, the former Russian ambassador responded, sardonically, “First, I'm never going to do that. And second, the list is so long that I'm not going to be able to go through it in 20 minutes.”